Weekly Review

Newly released intelligence documents revealed that between 2008 and 2011 the U.S. National Security Agency and the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters tapped the phones of a former Israeli prime minister, the vice president of the European Commission, the French petroleum company Total, the German Embassy in Rwanda, Unicef, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, the Taliban’s ministry of refugee affairs, and an Estonian “Skype security team.” An independent advisory panel released a report to President Barack Obama recommending new restrictions on the NSA’s domestic wiretapping; a federal district judge ruled in a lawsuit that the NSA’s phone-surveillance program was likely unconstitutional and ordered the government to destroy the phone records of two plaintiffs; the British News of the World tabloid was revealed to have tapped Kate Middleton’s phone prior to her marriage to the Duke of Cambridge; and Target confirmed that hackers had compromised approximately 40 million credit and debit cards belonging to people who shopped at its stores between November 27 and December 15.[1][2][3][4][5] The Obama Administration announced that it would allow people whose health-insurance plans were canceled because of reforms associated with the Affordable Care Act to claim a “hardship exemption” in order to avoid the requirement that they sign up for coverage by December 23.[6] During a routine traffic stop in Northampton, Massachusetts, police seized thousands of bags of heroin labeled Obamacare.[7] Obama commuted the sentences of eight prisoners who had been convicted of crack-cocaine offenses, and Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a law granting amnesty to prisoners convicted of hooliganism, triggering the release of 30 Greenpeace activists and two members of the punk band Pussy Riot.[8][9] The Indian government revoked the identity cards it grants to U.S. diplomats and removed the concrete security barriers surrounding the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi after an Indian official was arrested in New York City for lying on her visa application, then strip-searched. “There is a remarkable and almost charming egalitarianism in it,” said an American defense attorney. “Everybody is treated in exactly the same disrespectful, casually brutal, and arrogant fashion.”[10][11][12]

Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a suspect in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was ejected twice from the courtroom at the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after he repeatedly shouted about being tortured when asked by his trial judge whether he understood his rights.[13] Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula apologized for the behavior of a renegade fighter who attacked patients and personnel at a military hospital during an assault on a defense-ministry compound in Yemen earlier this month.[14] In South Sudan, as many as 500 people died in violence following a failed coup attempt reportedly led by the country’s former vice president, and three American aircraft sent to evacuate U.S. citizens retreated under small-arms fire from the ground.[15][16] Uganda passed a law making “aggravated homosexuality” punishable by life imprisonment.[17] The LGBT magazine The Advocate named Pope Francis its person of the year.[18] The United Methodist Church defrocked a Pennsylvania pastor who had officiated his son’s same-sex wedding, and students at a Catholic high school in Washington State staged a walkout to protest the dismissal of the school’s vice principal for marrying his male partner.[19][20] New Mexico’s state supreme court legalized gay marriage, and county clerks in Utah began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex partners after a federal judge ruled that the state’s law restricting marriage to heterosexual couples violated the U.S. Constitution. “Me and my new husband!!” tweeted one man about a photo taken with his partner. “My polygamous Mormon great grandparents would be so proud!”[21][22][23] American conservatives defended Phil Robertson, the star of the reality-TV show Duck Dynasty, who was suspended by A&E for making homophobic comments in an interview with GQ. “It seems like, to me, a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man’s anus,” said Robertson. “But hey: sin, it’s not logical.” “It is remarkable,” said Newt Gingrich. “There’s sections where he sounds like Pope Francis.”[24][25]

The United States announced that it would be sending three openly gay athletes in its delegation to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, and NBA hall-of-famer Dennis Rodman held tryouts for a North Korean basketball team that will face former NBA players in an exhibition game in Pyongyang.[26][27] North Korea sent a fax to the South Korean government warning that it might strike without warning, and researchers at York University in Toronto encoded the lyrics to “O Canada” in vodka and transmitted them across several meters of open air. “Imagine sending a detailed message using perfume,” said one engineer. “It is an incredibly simple way to communicate.”[28][29] The Supreme Court of Canada struck down the country’s antiprostitution laws.[30] At least 20,000 Germans received letters demanding they pay fines for viewing copyrighted pornography online.[31] A study published in the Christmas edition of the British medical journal BMJ found that nearly 1 percent of pregnant young American women claimed to have been virgins.[32] The man whose 86-year-old grandfather was chosen as the winner of Howard Stern’s “Get My Grandpa Laid” contest claimed the prize of sex with two prostitutes from Nevada’s Moonlite BunnyRanch after his grandfather died while choking during a celebratory steak dinner.[33] Christian radio host Harold Camping, who predicted at least six failed apocalypses, died, as did a woman denied the right to die by the Irish Supreme Court in April.[34][35] Authorities in Spain arrested a youth soccer coach after a thief who had broken into the man’s home discovered footage of him sexually abusing children. “I’ve had the misfortune of having the tapes fall into my hands,” said the burglar in a letter to police, “and feel obligated to present them to you so you can do your job.”[36]

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"When Matti invited me on a tour of the neighborhood, I asked about security. 'The message has already been passed to ISIS that you’re here,' he said. 'But don’t worry. I guarantee I could bring even you in and out of the Islamic State.'"

"It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis."